Fictional Self Portrait Of The Person example essay topic

- 2 - Lowry's story focuses on the two main characters - Rosie and Asher - who run away together causing considerable alarm to their respective parents and resulting in their being listed by the police as "missing persons". Their return is ironically precipitated by their own involvement in the search for another "missing person" - the young girl Angel who is discovered in their tent. Lowry deftly manages the course of this narrative employing the postmodern technique of multiple narration that enables the reader to see the events and characters from different perspectives. This is an ideal book to engage adolescent students since it addresses issues of immediate concern in a story that challenges their reading positions.

SELF-PORTRAIT Introduce students to the notion of a self-portrait. You might like to show some self-portraits by visual artists or photographers as well as some portraits by writers. Encourage them to consider what a self-portrait reveals about the person from the point of view of the audience. Suggest that they consider both what a self-portrait reveals and what it might seek to conceal. They might consider what affect the audience might have on how a self-portrait is constructed. Ask students to examine the brief self-portrait of the writer that is included in the front of the book.

Brigid Lowry was born in New Zealand and lives in Perth. In previous incarnations she has been a flower child, a waitress and a schoolteacher. She loves to cook, swim and look in her letterbox, and has been known to waste whole afternoons daydreaming in the library. Her star sign is Aries, and she has a tattoo of an island, a palm tree and a planet on her left shoulder.

Ask them what this reveals about the kind of person the writer Brigid Lowry is projecting herself as. Ask them to consider what is not revealed in this self-portrait. What might Brigid Lowry include in a self-portrait if she were approaching Allen and Unwin to publish her book or the Australia Council to give her a grant for researching and writing a book? Examine Rosie's "self" portraits (p 11, 12, 12-13, 15-16). Discuss the different self-portraits that Rosie constructs.

Have students discuss the notion of self or identity in relation to these self-portraits. What is the effect on the reader of the fictional portrait of "Old Time Rose"? Have students write a series of self portraits for different audiences - e.g. teacher, a prospective employer, a friend, a public relations media consultant, etc. Students might also like to complete a fictional self-portrait of the person they might like to be.

Allow time for the sharing of these portraits and encourage discussion of the ways in which they have been shaped for the specific audience. RESEARCHING LOCATION AND SETTING The novel is set in Western Australia. There are references to locations around Perth and Fremantle as well as to other towns such as Geraldton and Kalb arri up north and E ucla towards the east. Moreover, Byron Bay figures prominently as the place that Asher has come from. Have students research these places locating them on a map and finding visual images that illustrate geographical features and aspects of lifestyle.

Ask them to imagine they were planning a trip to one of these places and work out what they would want to do when they arrived. Allow time for each group to present their imagined trip to the rest of the class.